Random thoughts while multitasking my way through life

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Today is the start of my third 3 week section of my 51 week project. Phase 2 (I still think James Bond…) went well with the exception of walking. I am focusing on the positive and moving on to the next section. I am continuing/picking back up on the walks and strength training from Phase 1 and the routines and hopefully more sleep from Phase 2.

During Phase 3 I will be focusing on drinking more water and eating a healthier diet. I think tracking my food daily will be really helpful and keep me focused on eating the right foods. I seriously need to eat more fruit and vegetables. We were doing really well before everyone got sick but then we kind of fell away from that. I guess steamed veggies don’t sound so good when you are sick. Not really surprised. I am going update weekly on Sundays instead of a daily countdown of everything. It gets boring for me to post so I can only imagine how boring it is to read.

Phase 3: Day 1

Apparently, this extra activity and less caffeine is causing me to need more sleep. I went to bed last night before midnight, it was the first time in probably more than two months. I got up around 7:30 to walk Sully to the door on his way out to the office. I fed the dog and let him outside and I went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up until nearly 9:30. So, I slept for nearly 9.5 hours give or take fifteen minutes or so. I am usually good with about 7 hours of sleep and occasionally sleeping in on a Saturday or Sunday.

In the last month though, I have cut down on my caffeine intake considerably and I have started to exercise daily. I get sleepy throughout the day and my guess is that my body is still adapting to the reduced amount of caffeine in my system. On a bad day I might have had over 150mg of caffeine a day, maybe more if I ate something that had caffeine in it like chocolate. That figure isn’t really all that high, a heavy intake of caffeine is thought to be at 500 to 600mg a day, that converts to about four to seven cups of coffee.** Coffee upsets my stomach, thinking about drinking that much coffee makes me nauseous. Anyhow, my caffeine intake, on a bad day I hovered around 150mg, most days I was probably closer to 100mg. Now, I am at about 50mg or less.

I’ve cut my caffeine by a lot, that’s a 50% – 66% decrease in about a month. It makes sense that I am feeling some side effects from it. I am at a pretty steady rate now of about 12 ounces a day. I bought some 12 ounce bottles that I can drink at home and not be tempted to go to a drive-thru and get a larger size. I’ve tried before to cut down on my soda intake, there was always something difficult going on that made it difficult to do it, to really get it done. This time I really think I’ve made it to the other side. I don’t feel like I need it or have to have it. Right now it just feels like a habit. I am looking forward to it being something to enjoy on occasion.

Phase 1: Day 6….

I took a shorter walk today. We were at Gramma’s and I walked a small loop in her neighborhood getting about 2/3 of my walk done. I added on some stepping when I got home to make up the difference.

Lower body workout went well. I am thinking about adding some exercises to my workout next week. I also remembered to stretch. Yay!

I just read this quote and realized how perfect it is for today. Starting something new can be pretty scary, there’s the fear of the unknown and all of that.

For me, I find that I am hindered by expectations. It’s fairly normal for someone to have expectations regarding the outcome of a project or plan. For most people it’s a question of finishing the project or the general quality of the results. Apparently, I am not like most people. I find myself creating imaginary scenarios, which makes more outcomes that I have to plan for.

There are a few things that I struggle with starting and sticking to, losing weight and writing. It wouldn’t be so bad if all I was concerned about was failure. It goes deeper than that though.

In regards to losing weight, I worry about failure. I don’t want to fail and possibly gain even more weight. When I am trying to lose weight I usually don’t tell anyone. It’s embarrassing, that I need to lose weight, and then I stress about how people will react if I don’t succeed. I have that poisonous voice in my head that whispers evil things in my ear. So, I am thinking about all of the things that people would be saying behind my back, how they aren’t surprised that I failed, that I shouldn’t have tried in the first place, that I will always be a ‘big girl’, that either way it really doesn’t matter. I’ve actually had someone tell me the ‘big girl’ one, I will never forget that one.

As bad as failure is, I worry about succeeding too. It’s a lot of pressure. I am not particularly vain and yet, I can’t help but think of how I will look after I lose the weight. What if I lose weight and I am still not happy with how I look? The evil voice likes to tell me that it won’t matter, I will be unattractive either way.* I can hear the “other” people whispering about how it’s so sad that I did all of that work and it really didn’t matter.

OMG, I think I just learned something while writing this. I am apparently really afraid that I don’t matter. Wow…

*I am so very lucky that I have Sully. He tells me that I am beautiful, cute, amazing and other great compliments on a daily basis. It helps a lot with tuning out the evil voice.

Day 1….

My goal for Phase 1 is to walk everyday and do my weight/strength exercises six days a week. I’ve already gotten a jump on these this week so, I am excited to continue on and see some great results.

Boo and I walked during halftime of the later football game. A brisk ten minute walk, 0.60 miles. I know we will get faster and cover more distance as we continue to walk everyday.

Today is Sunday, I don’t have strength exercises scheduled today but I am going to do an extended stretching session.

*I am so very lucky that I have Sully. He tells me that I am beautiful, cute, amazing and other great compliments on a daily basis. It helps a lot with tuning out the evil voice.

I have big plans for 2013, too many to count. Yesterday I mentioned a few but there’s so many more, little, big, personal, public, symbolic, and a few are just to make a point. I am making a list, writing them all down. This year I want to get things done. I want to see some progress, the house, the yard, me, my writing, whatever it is, it’s going to be better this year.

This week I am working on my plan of attack and then next week it’s on.

In addition to planning I am working on a few things for me…

At the end of 2012, I had slowly started making some changes, more water, less Dr Pepper. I was feeling like it was ok to take time for me; a morning routine and a night routine. I started thinking about food choices: more vegetables, less processed foods. It’s been working, I’ve lost ten pounds between mid October and last Friday. I actually lost three pounds Christmas week. How crazy is that? Losing weight in the middle of all the amazing Christmas food and cookies.

Ok, so far so good. I am sticking with my goals and I am feeling pretty good about it. I am liking the 21 day plan. I think it’s a perfect amount of time to get me focused with out it dragging out too long.

Today, Boo and I met with Val and Kayla for lunch and then we went bowling again. Good times had by all. We all did much better this time, of course, maybe the bumpers helped a little. Just a little though. 🙂

It drives me a little batty that I can never just get up and do something for me. It seems like every time I plan on doing something for me there’s a list of tasks that I have to do first. For example, earlier tonight I wanted to go do my Shimmy workout. I got up to go in the other room, Sully had just started watching a movie trailer and stopped to watch, halfway through the trailer I left to get started. I got the DVD player on and then realized that our mostly blind Labrador followed me into the other room. That means I would spend the next half hour with him bumping into me. Logically, the alternative is to let him outside, but this means that I have to let the other dog in and crate him. So, five minutes later I finally got to start my workout, five minutes after that the dog I let out started barking. I made him wait until a break in the workout to let him back in, it really makes me crazy.

Honestly, I realize that half the time the delays and extra tasks are my own doing. I get up to turn on the dryer and I realize that I need to dump the trash and feed the cats their canned food, oh and since I am in the hall I might as well grab my craft stuff. It’s good that I can and do multitask but I’ve got to just get stuff done and finished.

Overall, today was a good day. My friend, ‘Tia’ needed us to watch her daughter ‘Lilo’ today and tomorrow. Lilo is almost five and quite cute inside and out, we had a lot of fun. Sully stated at the end of the day, “boy, she’s a pip.” Boo had a lot of fun and got a glimpse of what it would be like to have a little sister.